More User Reviews:

Purchased from Three Cellars in Franklin, WI. Pours bright, deep copper color with no head. Aroma is of grain and roast coffee. Medium bodied, this beer tastes of caramel up front and has a long, slow roasted coffee finish. Definitely for fans of iced coffee. Not sure I'd want a second one right away, but would definitely drink one again in the future.

Pours into my glass a deep cola brown with good clarity as well. A small white head forms and then quickly falls to bubbles above the brew. Aromas start out with mellow roasted malts and a touch of caramel. The coffee moves in and is quite vibrant with a bit of a chocolate undertone. A bit sweet as well. This does smell like iced coffee!

First sip brings a crisp, mildly roasted malt upfront with a touch of toffee and caramel. Earthy, brewed coffee rolls in with a solid creaminess as well. Flows down with a bit of chocolate and a mellow bitterness to counteract the sweetness. Coffee flavor lingers on. Damn good dark lager here.

Mouthfeel is crisp and smooth. On the lighter side but I find that really enjoyable as most coffee brews tend to be heavy stouts. This one is quite refreshing, while still packing a big coffee punch. Overall, a solid new brew from Furthermore and one I could see drinking a good number of on a hot summer day. Wish I had easier access to this one. Coffee beer lovers -- find this!

This is an interesting hybrid ale/lager ice brewed coffee California Common style Mexican brown lager. I don't know what Oscura but the word obscure comes to mind while describing this beer. I read about it on the website was intrigued so here's the beer does it work out?

Aroma is faint with a nutty coffee edge, creamy vanilla sweetness as well. An air of herbal hops slips in with the coffee, let's check out the first sip.

This tastes like a complex ice brewed coffee, which I've only had a handful of times. There's earthy, nut driven coffee notes. A touch of brown sugar/caramel with bitter coffee roasts/herbal hops this is a nice tsting session beer, especially if you like coffee. It's not a slap you around coffee brew but it's flavorful and refreshing within this context.

Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied carbonation is soft, almost as a silky creamy glide to it across my palate.

Drinkability is sessionable I'd like grab their sampler case, I really really liked the Knot Stock as well interesting brews Aran Madden used to brew here in the Burgh with the Foundry and Church Brew Works, I'm glad he found a happy new home to brew at.

A- This beer pours a crystal clear reddish-brown body the color of iced tea, with a thin film of grayish-beige foam. There was a slow carbonation of a few tiny bubbles working toward the surface.

S- This beer has a big smell of cold coffee grounds of medium roast. There aren't really any other aromas even when the beer warms but the coffee is pleasant to sniff.

T- This beer has a big coffee ground flavor with a softer espresso bean quality which is nice and a very faint malt hint in the background. There is a biscuit note that comes through in the last few sips of the beer. Then the finish of the beer is right back to all coffee bitterness.

M- This beer has a medium mouthfeel with a tight fizz at the finish. No alcohol heat was noticed.

D- This beer is coffee [stop] That is all [stop] There is no depth or other flavors to balance it, and the coffee flavor was mostly coffee grounds not coffee bean of fresh coffee. The more I sipped this beer the more the drinkability score when down. I give them high marks for creativity but there just isn't enough follow through.

Over-vigourously poured into a pint glass. Date on the bottom of the bottle implies it was bottled in 12/09, which is disconcerting since it was purchased in late fall 2010.

A: A very translucent burnt dark amber, with a foamy head that provided excellent lacing, though faded quickly (even with the extra vigorous pour).

S: Smell is fairly non-existant. Faint aromas of dark coffee.

T: Tastes of coffee, but a slightly more prominent taste is chocolate. The malt bill is there, but kind of underwhelming.

M: Thinner and slightly more carbonated than I would prefer, but enjoyable overall.

D: This is an extremely sessionable beer with no hint of alcohol taste whatsoever.

I'm going to have to rereview this beer once I'm able to get my hands on some fresher stock. The downside is that the bottling date is on the bottom of the brown bottle printed in black lettering, which means it's impossible to see when the bottle is still full. I remember the beer being much more enjoyable than I'm tasting tonight, even from a couple months ago.

So what we have here is a Mexican-styled Dark lager warm-fermented in the California Common tradition, with added coffee beans from a fair trade, all-female Co-Op in Nicaragua, and roasted at Just Coffee in Madison.

Oh, just another one of those....

It pours to a lightly hazed amber-brown-bronze color with a modest but sticky pale beige head. Roasted beans dominate the nose, and are backed with a slight (peanut skin) nuttiness and vague citric twinge in the back. Thoroughly roasted coffee bean across the mouth, but neither burnt tasting or acrid. A bit smoky, a tinge sweetish, almost fruity, and mostly nutty. The roast works well here, as the lightness of the beer needs a lively but mild bean. There are traces of peanut butter and a vague grapey vinousness, with some pear-ish fermentation-derived fruitiness . A creamed corn sweetness acts as a place holder in the midsection and is in harmony with the coffee aspects. Hops add a good deal of backend herbal bitterness, again in sync with the roasted bitterness of the foresections of Oscura, but there is no clear hop identity flavorwise. Medium-light bodied with ample carbonation upfront, and fading out over the duration. It's quite tasty and almost impossible to rate. It's hard to consider a coffee beer as a sessioner, but this more or less pulls it off. And I drink a shitload of coffee, so that's no issue with me, and I probably love it more for that fact. But simply put, there is a lot of coffee here as a ratio to the other flavors (it's very good coffee, but still), and that adds to the flavor quotient and probably subtracts from real drinkablity. Though, it's really not that hard to drink in quantity...so maybe just negate that last paragraph. Fact is, I enjoy this a lot and I have no fucking clue what else to say. Kudos to Furthermore for this wild card. I'm liking them more and more with each new release.

Furthermore kicks major ass - the most underrated brewery around. Any time a new beer is released, i get a little excited to see what new ridiculous liquid they have put in a bottle

The coffee in this sucker was roasted locally by Just Coffee, which is 100% fair trade and delivered around town by bicycle. Check out their shop on East Wilson Street in Madison. This place is awesome and their coffee is the best around. anyways...

appearance: poured into an imperial pint glass, clear amber lager body, creamy beige head with a strong lace left behind. Make no mistake about it, this is not your traditional coffee beer (ie: no porter or stout)

smell: a punch of freshly roasted iced coffee....there is definately a lager buried underneath this with hints of grain and herbal hops hiding beneath the beans

taste: The thing i like about futhermore is their innovation. Knot Stock is a flat out sensational APA dosed with peppercorns. Fallen apple is the only creamy apple cider beer that works, make weight is everything and nothing all at once and fatty boomblatty is the belgian pale no other wisconsin brewery has been able to bottle consistently. Oscura is just another chip off the block. A mexican dark lager drowned in locall roasted coffee beans - talk about a fresh idea! The immediate flavor profile is that of brilliant iced coffee. The beans arent bitter or overly roasty and actually come through extremely smooth. The lager base makes itself known in the finish with a sweet grainy finish and a mild hop presence. It's just really nice to see coffee in a beer and not combined with bourbon barrels, obscene alcohol, and dark roasty flavors. Well fucking done. There are imperfections in the flavor profile (especially the lager base) but it just seems like the abstractness of the idea overcomes that, thus a 5

mouthfeel: lighter but still creamy - perfect for a fall afternoon (or morning)

On-tap at the Acadia Cafe in Minneapolis. Served in a pint glass, it a clear amber with short, white head. Interestingly, I had this shortly after sampling Peak Organics' Espresso Amber. By comparison, the Obscura has more flavor up front, but less aftertaste. It still had a wonderful, medium roast aroma and burnt chocolate flavor. There was a touch of bready malt in the background, but the coffee dominated the flavor. Unlike some coffee beers, this one isn't too over the top. It's fairly drinkable and you can tell that's beer. I'd say it's worth a try to for coffee lovers.

On tap @ the Old Fashioned (Madison, WI) on 8/8/09. Served in a pint glass.

Pours a crystal clear amber, with thin covering of brite-white foam. Swirling elicits a good flareup and some decent patchy lace. The aroma is deep smelling with zippy espresso, and a nice roasty edge. Sticky malts sit underneath the coffee character, as does some floral hops. Man, this is all about the coffee though!

Coffee is just as assertive in the taste, being roasty and pervasive, and REALLY coming out in a zippy flush in the back. Sweet caramel and bread is present but definitely plays second fiddle here. Extra roast and hops ride along with the java, faintly lingering into the finish with the espresso flavor. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, with a prickly carbonation. Good representation of a Lager body here, being crisp yet smooth.

This was definitely a weird one. I honestly liked all of the individual components of this beer. Well done coffee character. Good backing flavors. A crisp, smooth, and easydrinking body. The problem is, I don't like my coffee beers feeling like a Lager and I don't like my Lagers having coffee in them. Thus the drinkibility takes a hit. I drank this with my meal and it just didn't work at all for me. Probably should have saved it for a nightcap. Otherwise, this is definitley one to check out if your a coffee-head.

A - Amber body with a good two fingers of off white head. Head recedes quickly, and leaves no lacing.

S - Caramel malt dominates with some herbal notes. One does note some nice, woody aromas with semi-sweet cocos. I picked up some strange, almost smoked-meat-esque aromas too. Overall, quite mild.

T - The coffee does do its work here in the flavor, adding wood, dry coffee, spice, and lots of roasted dryness to the beer. The malt gets dominated here a bit, but what is there is a mild caramel sweetness with a slight herbal edge. The hops are mild and spicy, but does not need much bittering from the hops to balance.

M - Feels like a marzen style lager, not to full, relative crispness.

D - A bit of a one-note song. Like Perkulator, if you like coffee, this is a fun one. But don't expect classic balance or depth. Just enjoy it for what it is, a coffee-bomb.

The smell is very strange, must be the coffee, but has more of a rich spicy character, almost Chai Tea Like.

The flavor is very odd, not bad just hard to describe, very spicy with cinnamon and cacao. The malt is buried behind the strange coffee and spice flavors and there are no real hops to speak of. Almost doesn't even taste like beer at all.

The mouthfeel is crisp with a very very dry powdering finish

Not sure about this one, very odd, I wouldn't drink it again to quick.

Thanks to eyncognito for this 12 oz bottle. A California common with coffee added.

A: The beer is a brown amber color, highlighted by orange brightness. The ale retains its translucence. A finger and a half of foamy creme-colored head is lacing around the mouth.

S: Spent coffee grounds drive the nose, a dark roast that isn't overpowering. While not overpowering, it is the depth and breadth of the nose.

T: The beer has a crisp flavor that is equal parts coffee, hops and clean grains. Coffee retains is cold toddy flavor, bitter and bold. Hops are citrusy, a touch of lemon to accompany the coffee. Caramel malts are sweet, a good pairing for the coffee. Hops are the final aspect, mildly bitter even through the coffee. The coffee is a standout, taking hold early and never letting go.

M: Coffee, lots of sweetly bitter coffee. The only drawback is that the coffee covers up any traces of steam beer.

D: Very quaffable, under 6%. I love coffee, beer and coffee in beer. A solid ale, the best I've had from Furthermore.